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Machinery designed for collating, feeding, orienting, placing, combining, diverting, dividing, unscrambling and all other functions relating to the moving and directing of a product to and through a packaging operation. The category includes all directional handling and feeding machinery sold separately and not as an integral part of a packaging machine. Orientation relies on the shape and mechanical behaviour of an object, particular the position of its centre of mass in relation to its centre of volume Product orientation is the process of orienting all products to the same position and then transporting them to the next point where some work is performed on them or by them. A number of different orienting techniques are available and the technique selected will depend on the product, speed and other requirements.

Vibratory feeders can also be used to feed and orientate complex shapes, which may be an advantage.

Most of the time empty containers are shipped to a factory in big bags, gaylord boxes, bulk bins and so on. These empty containers are required to be supplied to the packaging line uniformly in a particular orientation. The machine which does this work is known as an Orientating Machine OR an Orientator, if the containers are bottles only then the machine is called a bottle orientator.

These machines can orientate the containers vertically or axially or whichever way it is designed to work. There are usually 2 main techniques for bottle orientating, neck profile sensing or mouth / bottle opening sensing.

Orientation relies on the shape and mechanical behaviour of an object, particularly the position of its centre of mass in relation to its centre of volume. Product orientation is the process of orienting all products to the same position and then transporting them to the next point where some work is performed on them or by them. Most Orientators orientate the bottles in two steps, Pre Orientator takes the bottles from the bulk hopper and orientate those bottles length wise in the same direction (axially, flat, on edge etc.). Most Pre Orientators are centrifugal and they usually consist of a large bowl with a rotating disc at the bottom. Pre Orientaors can also be vibratory or can have multiple set of belts.

The bottles are usually fed after the Pre-Orientator via mechanical shapes, chutes to the escapement, where bottles are inverted / rotated or sent straight to the conveyor depending upon whether the bottle has arrived top first or bottom first. All the bottles are fed to the conveyor in a single direction with correct orientation and bottles go into the rinser or filler after that.